


Mosaic Broken Hearts

by actlikesummer



Category: Nancy Drew (TV 2019)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-22
Updated: 2021-02-22
Packaged: 2021-03-12 18:55:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29639136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/actlikesummer/pseuds/actlikesummer
Summary: Post episode 2x05When the weight of everything that they've been through hits Nancy, she admits to herself she needs help. As she can't reach Carson, she goes to the next best person her heart can think of.
Relationships: Nancy Drew & Ryan Hudson
Comments: 1
Kudos: 30





	Mosaic Broken Hearts

**Author's Note:**

> Written because there are not nearly enough stories about Nancy and Ryan and their new familial relationship.

Nancy stared out the windshield of her car and gripped the steering wheel tight. She’d entered her car almost twenty minutes prior, and although all of her friends had gone home to get some sleep, she’d found herself stuck in a frozen position.

It had been a long night.

It had been a long few weeks, she admitted to herself. Having jumped from Tiffany’s murder to her dad’s arrest, finding out who her biological parents were, and fighting off the Aglaeca, she hadn’t known what to do after it all ended.

Then the winds picked up, and the whispering started.

The redhead winced as the memory of her destroying the protective seal on the cursed objects held inside the Historical Society filled her mind. If she had been thinking as rationally as she usually did, she might have found another solution to that problem. But George was dying—had died—and panic had set in. It was something she wasn’t used to but was beginning to understand came with having a group like the one she had.

Now, because of her reckless panic, she had let loose untold amounts of horrors on her small beloved town, and she didn’t know what to do about it. She knew she would tell her friends; they would figure it out one way or another anyway. But she put her whole town and risk, and the weight of that guilt felt like it was crushing her.

Turning the key in her ignition, she started the car and sped out of the parking lot on autopilot. Her brain continued to imagine vile creatures and tragic situations as she drove, and her lungs started to feel like they were shrinking in size.

Picking up her phone, she dialed a number she’d had memorized since she was six and waited as it rang.

_“You’ve reached Carson Drew. Please leave a messa-”_

Throwing her phone on the passenger seat with a frustrated growl, she gripped the wheel again and pressed her foot harder onto the gas pedal. In minutes she was pulling up outside a familiar residence, and though she would usually feel hesitant or closed-off about it, she felt like she had no control of her body.

* * *

Ryan was sitting on his couch flipping through television stations but not really paying attention to anything he saw. Between his conversations with both Nancy and Nick the day before, he was worried. They had clearly been planning something, and it seemed big by the way they both spoke.

Then Nancy had been slow to figure out the music puzzle, and he knew something was wrong.

He shook his head as he glanced at his phone again. He’d gotten a call from Carson around midnight, telling him that Nancy had stopped by but had left just as quickly. She’d seemed scared and upset, but neither had been let in on why.

There had only been radio silence since then.

His newfound relationship with Carson Drew was a mystery to him, if he was being honest. He had never imagined himself buddying up to the man, but now that they shared a daughter, he figured he should embrace it.

If he wanted to get close to Nancy, he’d have to let in those around her as well and learn to change the way his brain had been wired the last thirty years.

Ryan glanced down to look at his phone again when his front door swung open, and his daughter stood in the entrance. His body rose from the couch immediately, and he found himself hurrying to her side.

She didn’t look right.

Her eyes were as wide as dinner plates, and her skin was pale against the red of her hair. He noticed the way her hands shook and how her gaze seemed to be somewhere else entirely. He also noticed that her breathing was erratic and growing even more dangerous by the second.

“Nancy?” He spoke quietly, afraid to upset her more. “What’s going on? Are you okay?”

“I…” her voice trailed off for a second. “I did something bad, and I don’t know how to fix it.”

His heart started beating a little faster. He hadn’t expected one of these parental panic moments to happen so soon, but with Nancy Drew as his daughter, he figured that was another thing he’d have to get used to.

“Hey, it’s okay. Whatever it is, we can deal with it.” He told her carefully, easing her away from the doorway so he could barricade her from the outside world and whatever seemed to be scaring her. “Tell me what happened, and we’ll fix it.”

It was like a dam broke as she started pacing, and the words spilled from her mouth.

“Have you ever visited the Historical Society? I doubt you have; most Hilltoppers have no reason to, but you’re not really one of them anymore, are you?

“Nevermind, I’m getting off-topic. Did you know they house a bunch of literature and safety boxes for cursed objects and old folklore from this town? I didn’t until a few weeks ago. But, man, is there a lot there. I’m glad there is, though, because we probably wouldn’t be alive right now without it.”

Ryan’s mind was racing as he tried to keep up with her. “Wait, what? Nancy, you’re not making sense.”

She groaned and faced him. “You remember that ritual we did to get rid of the Aglaeca? Yeah, it didn’t work, and my friends and I have been trying to find a way to stop her ever since. Did you know she was human? Captain Marvin married her, stole all of her money, and then murdered her, so she became an evil sea spirit.

“Anyway, we couldn’t figure out how to stop her, and then we found out we only had a few more days to live, but we _still_ didn’t know what to do. Then we tried to use ourselves as bait so we could kill her right before she got to us, but she knocked me from the bluffs before I could.”

Her newfound father felt like he might die that very second. The bluffs—the same place Lucy had died—had almost taken his daughter too. God, he wished he had kept following her.

“I survived, obviously, and we thought that Nick and George had killed her. They didn’t, and she came for us at midnight.”

Midnight. That was why she had stopped by to see Carson and had left so suddenly. Some of the puzzle pieces were starting to fall into place now, but he still had no idea where she was going with her story.

“Then we figured out that if we appealed to her human side, we might be able to get her to remember who she was and get her to stop herself. It worked, sort of. When she disappeared, she sent this…this blast of light around us. We thought we were okay…

“But George…the spear fell off the ceiling and impaled her.” Her voice broke now, and tears fell down her cheeks. “She was losing so much blood.”

“Oh my God.” Ryan thought of the young woman he’d had an affair with not long ago.

He may have regretted it, but he didn’t want anything to happen to her.

Nancy continued as her breath came in gasps. “She…she di-died. Right there in Nick’s arms. I couldn’t...I couldn’t let that happen. I found something at the Historical Society that could save her but…but I couldn’t unlock the box.”

She looked at him, and he thought she looked so much like a scared child in that moment. “I broke the seal on every box. I wasn’t thinking, I saved George, but I…I let them all out. I cursed the whole town, and I don’t…I can’t…”

Ryan moved forward immediately and caught her as she slumped, sobs breaking through her ragged breathing. As he wrapped his arms around her, he placed his fingers on the pulse point in her neck. Her heart was beating way too fast for his liking, and he knew she was having a panic attack.

Cradling her head to his chest, he hushed her cries. “Hey, it’s okay. You were saving George. You didn’t know that it would happen. It’s okay.

“But you need to focus on my breathing, okay? You’re going to pass out if you can’t calm down a little.” He told her and hoped she would be able to follow his advice.

Thankfully, she did as told, and soon her breathing was better. Instead of the panic attack, however, she was crying, clutching his body to her own. “I’m sorry I didn’t call you last night. I wanted to, but I didn’t know what to say, and…”

“It’s okay, Nance.” He didn’t mean for the nickname to slip out, but neither commented on it. “All that matters is that you’re safe now. You’re all safe now.”

She let out a broken cry again, and Ryan was positive he’d never had anything hurt his heart so severely in his whole life. “I’m sorry…”

Though he still held her, he slowly walked them over to the couch so he could sit her down and steady her. He wasn’t sure she was fully aware of the fact that she was curling into his side, but he wasn’t going to mention it as he leaned them back into a more comfortable position.

Though he hated seeing and hearing her cry, he was grateful for the tender moment with his daughter.

Her cries soon subsided as he whispered reassuring words to her, and before he realized it, she had fallen asleep against him. He imagined she hadn’t had the easiest time sleeping in recent days and was positive she hadn’t slept at all the night before.

Grabbing the blanket he had draped over the back of the couch, he pulled it over her body so that she was tucked in and continued to hold her close. When her phone rang, he saw that it was Carson and answered it for her.

“Hey, it’s Ryan.”

 _“Is Nancy okay?”_ He sounded worried. _“I was in a meeting, and I didn’t hear my phone ring…”_

“She’s…it was a rough night.” He told the man honestly. “I’ll let her tell you when she gets home. But she’s safe; so you can rest easy there.”

_“Can I talk to her?”_

Ryan looked down at the sleeping teenager and sighed. “She just fell asleep.”

He waited as Carson hesitated. _“Do you want me to come get her?”_

Though he knew logically that Carson couldn’t see him, Ryan found himself shaking his head. “No, it’s okay. I’ll take care of her, and when she wakes up, I’ll have her call you.”

_“Thanks, Ryan. Maybe you won’t need as many of those parenting books as we thought.”_

He chuckled. “Oh, I’m sure I do. But for right now, I think this is something I can figure out.”

As he hung up with his co-parent, he looked down at his daughter again and hugged her more tightly to his side. If this was the only physical connection he’d get from her for a while, he would take it while it lasted.

He knew that the second she left his house later, he would look at the flash drive Nick had given him. If having Nancy in his life meant taking down the rest of their family, so be it. They didn’t need a fortune to have each other as long as they were safe.

And he would be damned if he wasn’t going to keep her safe.


End file.
